Tardy Sweeps Are Counterproductive

Getting to school on time is a struggle students have had to deal with every once in a while. Our school isn’t as forgiving to students attempting to get to class after the bell rings. Two years ago, tardy sweeps were implemented and this year they’re making this punishment into a big ordeal. Once students have been deemed tardy, an assistant principal takes the collective group and makes students record their ID to account for their tardiness. This practice is unnecessary and takes away from students learning. We believe that students should be held accountable for their attendance by their teachers only and not by these useless tardy sweeps.

Instead of letting students get to class on their own, tardy sweeps ironically make students even more late for their classes, and at times counted absent. The process of waiting in line to put your name and ID down if you’re tardy is redundant. Teachers take attendance for a reason, to mark who’s present, late or absent. There’s no point in tardy sweeps when there’s a whole staff of teachers to mark down students who show up late.

At some point, administrators will have to realize that tardy sweeps do nothing but irritate the students subjected to it. It doesn’t aid in making students show up to class on time, but instead creates a feeling of negativity toward the staff implementing this practice. Students are supposed to be comfortable with their administrators, but when these authority figures are constantly hounding them for matters they can’t always control, it creates a barrier between the students and faculty.

Though some believe that tardy sweeps help reinforce that students need to get to class on time, it is actually useless. Teachers take attendance themselves and they don’t need the extra help in counting kids late or absent. These sweeps that the administrators try so hard to enforce do not actually aid the student in bettering themselves. Instead, it takes away from their education and creates feelings of discontent towards the administrators due to the intense nature of these sweeps.